


Natural Number One

by What_Happens_To_The_Heart



Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Dungeons & Dragons References, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Gen, TTRPGs, Tabletop Roleplaying, yes ttrpgs are still around in the future, you can't convince me beverly wouldn't be the GM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25022680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/What_Happens_To_The_Heart/pseuds/What_Happens_To_The_Heart
Summary: Sometimes what you need after a long duty shift is a bit of good old fashioned tabletop roleplaying with your pals.
Kudos: 15
Collections: Pillowfort Star Trek Big Bang





	Natural Number One

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the Star Trek Big Bang event hosted on the Pillowfort Star Trek community in the spring of 2020. The awesome cover and dice divider was made by my event partner [bookscorpion](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookscorpion)! Thank you!!

The sun shone brightly overhead as the slightly weary party made their way up the dusty road that slowly snaked its way up the side of the hill. It was early afternoon and they'd set out on foot from Stonybrook after breakfast, but if their information was correct they should arrive at their destination any second now. As they pressed on, a cloud of dust came into view further up the path. The trio slowed their step for a moment, until the familiar figure of their fourth party member became discernible in its midst as he jogged down the path at a superhuman pace.

"The entrance to the cave is approximately 300 meters ahead," Fate reported as he came into easy earshot of the group. In spite of the heat of the day, the brief scouting tour seemed to have caused him no exertion at all. Not a single hair on his head was out of place although dust clung to his white belted tunic, which even at its cleanest was barely a shade paler than his oddly pearlescent, pallid skin and the small, blunt horns that protruded from his forehead. He came to a stop a few yards away from his friends, letting them catch up with him. 

"About time!" Alistair replied, wiping his dark brown brow with the sleeve of his long, crimson robes. He stopped for a moment in front Fate, peering up the road past his monk companion, the peculiar metal band he wore over his eyes glinting in the noontime sun. "I could do with some shade."

"You could say that again," Horatio agreed, stopping alongside his fellow human and loosening a button on his silky shirt. Taking off his wide-brimmed, feathered hat, he fanned himself with it for a moment, the large blue feather in it bobbing cheerfully up and down.

Lariel said nothing, simply passing an even glance over her companions as she tucked a black curly strand of hair behind a slightly pointed ear and moved up to take point, her well-polished full suit of plate gleaming in the sun. Fate turned once more, falling into step just behind her as they continued up the hill. The two humans exchanged a look that was half sheepishness and half amusement before picking up the pace once more.

"This'll be a piece of cake," Horatio said cheerily as they walked, returning the hat to his head. "Quick scuffle with a little band of kobolds, get the villagers' stolen belongings and we'll be back at the inn in time for dinner!"

"You may want to revise that statement..." Lariel said, having reached the mouth of the cave and stopped just on the cusp.

"What do you mean?" Alistair asked.

She lifted the mace in her right hand and pointed into the cave. The opening was as wide as four men, widening gradually further in. There were no sources of light inside and at the very back of the cave, only barely visible by what little sunlight reached it, was a vast pile of coins and jewels. Alistair let out a low whistle and the four exchanged glances before pressing on into the cave. 

"That can't all be from Stonybrook," Horatio said.

"It is indeed a quantity that seems unlikely to all come from such a humble settlement," Fate agreed.

"They must've been raiding other nearby villages, maybe trade caravans too..." Lariel said. She spoke a magic word and her mace beginning to glow with a soft, white light that brightened the cave around them. They continued further in, steps echoing against the stone.

"I hear a sound," Fate said once they were twenty odd meters from the edge of the treasure hoard, the ground dotted with coins and other valuables.

"What is it?" Alistair asked.

"I am not cer-" 

Before he could finish the sentence, a kobold appeared out of the darkness with a screech and launched itself at him. With lightning-fast reflexes, Fate knocked it out of the air with a roundhouse kick and sent it thumping against the wall of the cave. As it hissed and got back on its feet, brandishing a rusty blade, a second one appeared out of the darkness at its side, then a third and a fourth. Before the intrepid band of adventurers had time to react, kobolds poured into the cave with disconcerting speed and number, coming out of the many side-tunnels that lined its mighty walls. Within moments, they had surrounded the party, interposing themselves both between the group and the mouth of the cave, and between the group and the objective of their quest - the vast mound of coin, gems and precious heirlooms in the back of the cave.

"Like I said..." Horatio mumbled, unsheathing his rapier. "A piece of cake." 

The next moment chaos erupted, screeches and the sounds of combat filling the air. With rapier and mace, eldritch force and fist, the quartet managed to hold their ground at first, then slowly, very slowly, begin to thin out the horde of attackers. Though small in stature, the kobolds more than made up for it in number and ferocity and as the fight went on, Alistair found himself temporarily cornered and outnumbered. As the weight of several small bodies impacted him in the back of the knees the warlock tumbled to the ground, the breath knocked from his lungs. An additional attacker clambered onto his back, raising a jagged, rusty blade high above his felled foe. Before the blade came down, the kobold let out a squeal as a flash of brightly polished metal sent it flying into the cave wall. 

"On your feet, Alistair," Lariel said, the half-elf cleric clasping arms with her friend to help him up. As she did, a gentle light enveloped her hand and snaked its way across his body, the wounds he'd sustained shrinking, the small ones healing, as it went.

"Phew!" He shook his head, dusting off his robes. "Thanks, Lariel."

She flashed him a quick smile, then turned, shifting the mace back to her right hand and bringing it down on the head of a kobold in one smooth movement. 

"Nice one!" The warlock grinned, sending off two bolts of crackling green light at another advancing enemy. It fell to the ground, smoldering lightly. Some distance behind it, Fate stopped, a throwing star raised and aimed at the spot where the kobold had recently stood. He cocked his head slightly to the side, a characteristically subtle show of surprise, then spun around to hurl the razor-sharp projectile at another encroaching enemy. Not stopping to see it hit its target, he turned and unleashed a flurry of fists against a third.

Suddenly, a bellow cut through the din of the battle and was met with a series of whoops and jeer from the remaining kobolds; from one of the tunnels a larger kobold had appeared, a mighty fur cloak around his shoulders and a long, curved blade in each hand. Recognizing the rousing effect his presence had on the others, Horatio cut through the crowd to face him one-on-one. 

"Hey, big guy!" he called as he approached. "What does a kobold with two swords have in common with a sock with two holes in it?"

"Huh?!" the kobold snarled, turning to face him.

Horatio grinned brightly and flourished his rapier in the direction of his foe. "Neither is more than a minor nuisance to me!"

The large kobold took a step back, pressing his knuckles to his forehead with a groan, then roared and charged at the lightly disheveled human. They crossed blades, circling around each other and dealing blow after blow, the kobold hacking and shoving while Horatio side-stepped and slashed. Exchanging cuts and bruises evenly, each seemed to wear the other down until the kobold managed to catch his adversary across the upper arm, slicing through the silky shirt and cutting into the flesh below. Horatio didn't falter, nor miss a beat before retaliating. He hit the kobold across the chest, the counter-attack missing him by a foot. Seeing his victory before him, he grinned as brightly as when the duel started and attacked with a flourish, swiping his rapier at the torso of his foe. 

The die clattered on the table, and Will leaned forward a bit in his chair to better see the results. Exhaling slowly, he leaned his head in his palm, rubbing his index and long finger along his brow. 

"Natural 1?" Beverly asked, the very ghost of a smile at the corners of her mouth. 

He nodded slowly, Geordi cringing from across the table. They'd been playing together for a few months now, long enough for them all to learn that at Dr. Crusher's table, crit fumbles always had consequences beyond simply failing at the task at hand. 

"The kobold leader dodges your attack, rapping you across the knuckles and knocking the rapier out of your hand. It clatters to the ground a few feet away. It is now his turn, and he..." She rolled a die behind her GM screen, her and Will the only two at the table who opted for physical dice instead of digital ones. "rolls a natural 20, dealing you..." Another pause, more clattering of dice. "17 slashing damage. He'll also move five feet this way..." She reached into the holographic battle map that took up the center of the large table and moved one of the tiny figures inside it one hex to the right. "...to interpose himself between you and your blade."

From there it quickly went from bad to worse, as "Horatio" took more damage and his attacks, made with the shitty back-up dagger he'd had since character creation and barely used, were debuffed repeatedly by a kobold caster who had snuck up to aid the faction leader. Realization of how bleak things were looking for their rogue-bard setting in, the rest of the party rallied to him with buffs and attacks to keep the other kobolds who were trying to take advantaged of his weakened state at bay. As Data made short work of the caster, Riker finally retrieved his weapon and immediately took a hit that rendered him unconscious. Thanks to a quick healing word from Deanna, he was back to 5 hit points and rolled a 19 against the kobold leader's 17 AC.

"How much damage is that?" Beverly asked.

"9, no, 10!"

"10... You slash him across the throat and he stumbles back, collapsing into a heap on the ground."

"Yes!" Riker slapped the table in delight, the sheepishness at his own excitement that he'd shown in their first few sessions long gone. The others grinned their approval as the turn continued. Over the next two rounds, the remaining kobolds were disposed of by the rest of the party as Riker poured over his character sheet in search of a healing potion he eventually remembered he'd used up in the previous session. 

"And... he's dead." Beverly tapped the last remaining holographic kobold and it blinked out of existence. 

"Was that the last one?" Geordi said, scanning the hologram for others.

"I do believe it was," Data corroborated. 

"Not a moment too soon, either..." Will shook his head.

"On your feet, my friend!" Geordi said in his Alistair-voice, which was largely the same as his regular voice but with stronger projection. "I help him up. "

"Well fought, comrades!" Data chimed in.

"Now to claim our reward," Geordi rubbed his palms together. "I want to have a look at that treasure horde, see if anything there stands out to me as particularly interesting. Like, in the magic sense."

"Although Fate will insist on distributing the money among the nearby communities and returning any magical items to their rightful owners if a good description is provided, nevertheless he will help you with your inspection."

They rolled an arcana check and an investigation check respectively as their characters picked through the piles of coin for things of note. 

Deanna squinted at her remaining spell slots and then checked another one off with a tap on her PADD. "You get 17 hit points back, Will."

"Oh, thank you." He tapped his PADD, adjusting his health. "That was close." He shook his head.

"Ah, come on, you weren't worried about a few kobolds, were you?" Geordi grinned at him.

"No, of course not. At our level?" Will scoffed.

"Are kobolds unlikely to pose a threat to characters of our level?" Data asked.

"Of course they are!" Geordi replied. "I'm surprised you ask, Data. Seems like you could calculate those sorts of odds in the blink of an eye. Don't you have all the source books loaded into your memory banks?"

"Indeed I do, Geordi," he replied. "However, I have devised a special sub-routine to enhance my immersion in the game. In essence, it prevents me from accessing so called out-of-character information or making deductions or calculations that Fate would be unable to make even in the extraordinary circumstances signified by a natural 20." 

"Really?" Beverly quirked an eyebrow. "That sounds quite intricate."

"Designing it was an interesting challenge, and I am not sure it has quite been perfected yet. Further play is required to test it out."

"I see."

"That's fascinating, Data," Geordi replied. "I'd love to take a look at that code some time if you don't mind."

"Certainly not. So far, I have found it to indeed be an interesting experience. I believe it will be very useful for my personal development to spend time in the mindset, as it were, of a personage with such limited cognitive and deductive capacities."

They others exchanged an amused glance. Data wasn't wrong, of course. Even a character with outstanding INT couldn't begin to compare to their android friend, but considering how the different stats corresponded with the narrative realities of the game, Fate's intelligence of 20 still meant his capacity for deduction and calculation was incredible by in-universe standards. 

"So what happens if an alert is sounded mid-game?" Geordi went on to wonder. "Or some kind of other emergency where you're needed at full capacity? I assume you have some sort of fail-safe in place."

"You are correct, Geordi. I have constructed the subroutine such that it will deactivate automatically when I leave the holodeck, as well as if alert status is activated. I can also switch it off manually."

Geordi repeated his desire to have a look at the sub-routine's code, and then turned to Riker to comment on the odd but efficient zinger he'd used against the kobold leader. Friendly banter ensued as Beverly looked over some notes behind the GM screen. 

"Deanna, you took Observant, right? What's your passive perception now?" She asked casually, eyes still on her notes.

"Perception?" Deanna scanned her digital character sheet for the right number. "It's 22."

Beverly nodded slowly, making a note, and then looked up. "Lariel..." The use of the character's name pulled Deanna's fully away from the table talk, and she straightened in her chair. "The coins on the ground around your feet... they're vibrating just a little."

Lariel the half-elf cleric narrowed her eyes at the sight of the coins by her boot trembling slightly, following the trail of currency from her position back to the pile from which it had spilled. Trembles, trembles everywhere, the sound of the coins rubbing lightly against each other in an eerie, growing whisper. The others seemed not to have noticed yet, preoccupied as they were with picking through the treasure.

There were tunnels running all through this mountain, the villagers had said. Suddenly, Lariel knew exactly what was happening. The kobolds had been bringing treasure to the cave for months, and kobolds weren't interested in treasure for treasure's sake. They were interested in treasure for the sake of...

"Guys..." Lariel said, raising her voice to cut through the jovial banter of her companions. "Dragon!" She whirled to face the mound of riches, silver cape billowing behind her as she unhooked the mace from her belt, raising it in the air as pale light erupted from it once more.

The others fell silent, all looking her way at once. For a moment, nothing in the cave moved except the lightly vibrating coins. Just as Alistair began to ask what the cleric meant, the vibration turned into a tremor and the tremor into a quake before an enormous, red, scaled head broke through the center of the treasure pile. The creature roared as it rose to its full height, head nearly impacting the roof of the cave as rivulets of coins tumbled down its back. The four stood side-by-side, shoulders squared as they gazed up at the beast. Speaking a magic word, Lariel drew a sigil in the air and four small motes of light appeared out of nowhere and floated off to dance around the foreheads of herself and her three friends. A heartbeat passed in silence, and then the dragon roared once more, launching itself forward on mighty hind legs.

"What a time to be out of spell-slots..." Alistair mumbled, purple eldritch energy crackling between his fingers as he shuffled several steps back and hopefully out of harm's way.

"Well, Fate..." Horatio said, drawing his short-sword from the sheath once more. "I feel like going fishing, so let's get this worm!"

The tall, pale tiefling smiled in recognition of the tangible, magical encouragement his friend bestowed, and set off, taking a running leap off of the cave wall and propelling himself through the air, flying at the dragon with fists raised.


End file.
